During the week I share the latest marketplace lending and fintech news on Twitter as it happens. Then every Saturday I take the most interesting news items and blog posts from the past week and share them here.
Understanding Renaud Laplanche’s next Upgraded act from TechCrunch – We start this week off with another piece about Renaud Laplanche’s Upgrade and the state of marketplace lending today.
App-Only Banks Rise in Europe and Aim at Traditional Lenders from The New York Times – The UK is the world leader when it comes to “app-only” banks with some companies there getting serious traction. The New York Times profiles a couple of the leading players in this Sunday piece.
Fintech pair aim to disrupt industry with investments for millennials from Financial Times – Leading UK fintech platform Revolut doesn’t want to just become another medium sized bank, they want to be the Amazon of finance.
U.S. Bank takes on fintechs with new online loans, card for small businesses from American Banker – A new entrant in the online small business lending market is U.S. Bank. They have launched a new platform to compete with Kabbage and OnDeck.
American Credit Scores Hit a Record High from Bloomberg – The average FICO score is now 704, an all-time high. And super-prime consumers, those with scores of 800 or more, now amount to 22% of the FICO population.
Funding Circle pays out incentives to would-be lenders from The Times – This is not all that surprising to me but The Times is reporting that Funding Circle pays incentives to investors when it enters a new country.
Funding Circle cuts price range for London IPO from Financial Times – For their upcoming IPO Funding Circle has tightened their price range to 440p to 460p giving a maximum valuation of £1.5 billion.
Payments Fintech Stripe Valued at $20 Billion in Latest Funding Round from The Wall Street Journal – Online payments leader Stripe is now valued at a whopping $20 billion after their latest funding round according to the Wall Street Journal.
An Update on Pricing and Credit Changes from Prosper – Some changes announced at Prosper this week as they tighten credit standards and increase interest rates.
Watchdogs Can’t Handle Wall Street’s Riskiest Loans from Bloomberg – Some of the most aggressive corporate financing is being done outside the traditional banking sector in the leveraged loan market.
Square Is the Next FANG, and Other Signs of Market Euphoria from The Wall Street Journal – Shares in fintech company Square are up 173% this year and they have a market cap now of $39 billion. This Wall Street Journal journalist wonders if they are set for a fall.
MBA Loans Provider Prodigy Finance Secures $1 Billion In Funding from BusinessBecause – International student loan provider Prodigy Finance has closed $1 billion in debt financing from some of the biggest names in finance.
Nelnet withdraws application for industrial loan charter from American Banker – Yet another company has pulled its application for an industrial loan charter. This time it is Nelnet and they say it is just a “temporary step back”.
How much is a FinTech CEO worth? from Chris Skinner’s Blog – Interesting piece by Chris Skinner on executive pay in fintech with data coming from a recent survey by an executive search firm. The average total comp package for a fintech CEO in 2017 was $857K.
LendingClub Settles Federal Charges of Misleading Bank Partner from The Wall Street Journal – LendingClub settles with the Justice Department and the SEC over issues stemming from their tumult in 2016.
How AI helped double volume at this auto lender from American Banker – Here is an example of the true potential of AI when it comes to expanding access to credit. A subprime auto lender was able to double their loan volume this year.
From the Lend Academy Forum
The Lend Academy forum is where investors go to discuss p2p lending. Below are some topics that were being discussed this week.
Are there any good tools to evaluate notes on secondary market? – An investor is looking to invest in more notes on the LendingClub’s secondary market.
Automated investing & liquidation for Lending Club – A new automated investing tool for LendingClub has launched.
IRA Notes sold- what next? – Investors need to consider the implications of future recoveries when closing down an IRA account with LendingClub.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.